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Friday, June 12, 2015

More Demo's~The Ultimate Stencil

I'm always listening and watching my students in the classroom to determine if I need to come up with better ways of teaching a technique. When I'm teaching how to use the Ultimate Stencil there is consistently a lot of confusion about how to transfer a design from the paper Master Grids to the quilt itself.

At my last retreat in Auburn one of my retreaters suggested having my students have actual quilt blocks to transfer their designs to...it would make more sense that way. Great Idea!!!! I have a big batch of orphan blocks being donated for classroom use in the next week or so but I had a few sitting here that I thought I could use for my classroom easel demo now.

I wanted to share these instructions with all of YOU hoping it may help alleviate any confusion you may have.

I always recommend that you draft your design on the paper Master Grids first! This is how I do it when I'm designing and it's a lot less intimidating. (Newly drafted grids are available on the front page of my website that include extra angles and lines).

This is a very basic eight pointed star that has been drawn on a paper circle Master Grid. Now that I am happy with my design I need to transfer this design to my quilt block.

I need to determine which lines I need to mark with my stencil directly on to my quilt block in order to duplicate that design. (These lines are shown in blue.) If you don't want to trace the entire circle you can just make dots at the intersections. (These are shown in yellow).

I placed the Ultimate Stencil directly on top of my quilt block and marked ONLY the lines that I need to recreate the star. (These lines are shown in blue).

Now that I have my guidelines I simply "connect my dots" or "lines" to recreate my eight pointed star on my quilt block (star is shown in red lines).

Here's another example:

I want to create a very simple flower on my quilt block. I've drafted it out first on a paper circle Master Grid. I need to determine which lines I need to mark with the Ultimate Stencil directly on to my quilt block in order to duplicate the design. (lines are shown in blue).

I place the Ultimate Stencil directly on top of my quilt block and mark only the lines I need to duplicate the flower on my block (lines are shown in blue).

Now I simply "connect the dots" or "lines" to recreate my flower on top of my quilt block. (lines are shown in red).

Now you may "quilt as desired"!

I hope this has helped! I will be revising my free instruction book to include these instructions in the near future. If you have any other suggestions or ideas using these fabulous design stencils please let me know! I'm always listening.